Coping with urinary incontinence: development and testing of a scale.

Using psychometric theory and Mitteness' theory of urinary incontinence, the author developed a 159-item self-report, interval level, and norm-referenced scale to measure the effectiveness of coping with urinary incontinence. As a result of the expert evaluation, The Coping With Urinary Incontinence Scale was reduced from 159 items to 64 items. A pilot study determined initial internal consistency estimates for the scale. One hundred seventy-three community-residing, incontinent older adults participated in the major study. The Cronbach's Alpha for internal consistency reliability for the final version of 39 items was .9359 (standardized item alpha = .9526). Ten subscales were created: strengthening muscles, coping sexually, intimate moments, seeking health care strategies, controlling urge and loss of urine, rearranging physical environment, expressing emotions, concealing attempts, seeking social support/rearranging social environment, and managing in social situations.